Arlington Cleans Up After The Storm
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ARLINGTON (CBS 11 NEWS) - The city of Arlington is one of a number of North Texas cities cleaning up after Thursday's storms rushed through the area. As of 2pm Friday, ONCOR was reporting nearly 29,000 people still without power. There were 24 city intersections without working stoplights.
This, as residents and business owners surveyed damage and related their stories. John Crocker of International Limo Sales says he and an employee rode out the storm in their office as the roof came off over their heads.
"It seemed like an eternity but it was probably 2-3 minutes before the whole building peeled off," Crocker told CBS 11 NEWS. He says if his son hadn't called to warn him of the storm, it would have taken him by surprise. But when he stepped outside he sensed the danger, so he and an employee hunkered down next to a cabinet to protect each other. "Everything crunching and crackling, and the wind whistling, and again---your survival instincts kick in. So you hang on and hope for the best.
They survived; he suffered a few cuts of glass on his leg. But he calls the damage to his office and his fleet...catastrophic. "There's probably 3-4-5 cars totaled; one car turned over. the others have metal rods through them. Damage all throughout the cars.
A few cars in his fleet were spared; they were in shops elsewhere. Crocker says there's nothing to do now but pick up the pieces and keep going.
Elsewhere, wind scratched pockets of damage throughout Arlington, shredding trees on one street but leaving the next untouched. This huge limb came though Michael Johnson's roof as he was about to shower. "If I had been in the shower, my head would've gotten chopped off by that tree in there."
Johnson tells CBS 11 News that it was literally raining inside his home. I heard like a loud explosion and I saw the tree come though above the washer and dryer. And I started running around the house and all the ceiling was falling down."
Similar tales throughout the city, but residents are fighting back. Repairs are well underway at Arlington Baptist College where the storm tore the room off a women's dorm.
The Johnsons are moving out of their rent home, preparing to live with relatives until the new home they just bought is ready.
"We're going to have to put all of our belongings in storage and we're going to have to stay with my mom or my father-in-law or somebody until the house is actually ready for us to move in," Michael's wife, Toni Johnson, said.
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